Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019 | 9:30 p.m.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico coach Paul Weir did his best to get the Lobos to focus on playing their game against undefeated and sixth-ranked UNR.
"I actually gave them a quote (Friday) and a quote (Saturday) in the locker room from Gregg Popovich after the Spurs beat the Raptors," Weir said of the San Antonio head coach. "It's not about who we're playing. It's not about anything, it's just about us executing and competing. And that's all we talked about for two days."
The message sunk as the Lobos shut down UNR on Saturday, getting 27 points from Anthony Mathis and handing the Wolf Pack their first loss of the season, 85-58.
"We had so many people rebound the ball. And play unselfish," Mathis said. "A team that plays unselfish is so hard to beat, as you see. We played super unselfish and we got a big win."
New Mexico (8-6, 2-0 Mountain West) knocked the Wolf Pack (14-1, 1-1) from the ranks of the undefeated and sent fans streaming onto the court.
Vance Jackson came off the bench for a double-double, with 18 points and 10 rebounds, and added seven assists and three steals for the Lobos. Makuach Maluach had 14 points.
Jordan Caroline scored 17 for UNR, which looked out of sorts throughout. Brothers Caleb and Cody Martin combined for 4-for-21 shooting from the field and 17 points.
New Mexico took control early in the first half with a 20-6 run for a 22-9 lead. The spurt featured 3-pointers by Jackson and Dane Kuiper, as well as a resounding windmill dunk by Carlton Bragg that energized the crowd and the team.
"It just got us going," Mathis said. "You see your opponent dunking on people like that, it just gets you going. You just want a piece of it. You want to get in there. You want to contribute. You want to do your thing and that's what we did."
New Mexico maintained a double-figure lead despite the Wolf Pack scoring three straight points off of technical foul shots. The lead grew to 22 points at 67-45 after 3-pointers by Maluach and Mathis with seven minutes left.
"The one thing we've prided ourselves on was really competing until the end," UNR coach Eric Musselman said. "We didn't play hard tonight. We splintered and we came apart. We have to regroup and try to play better next game.
"We just had a bad night all around. We had a bad night sharing the ball. We had a bad night defensively. Usually they're zoned in on the scoring report, but we let guys who are shooters take open shots and we didn't play who we are. Just a terrible game for all of us."
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